


Magic in Your Eyes

by freetheelves2



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-22
Updated: 2006-06-22
Packaged: 2018-08-24 06:01:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8359960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freetheelves2/pseuds/freetheelves2
Summary: When Hermione is forced to find another compartment to sit in on the ride to Hogwarts, she runs into someone she'd never really noticed before, Theodore Nott.





	

Hermione swore under her breath as she walked rapidly down the hallway of the Hogwarts Express, looking left and right to see whether a spot was open in a compartment anywhere.  
  
Bollocks, really. They – Harry and Ron – had shooed her out of 'their' compartment, telling her that they had 'boy-things' to talk about. After seven years together, she would have thought they could share a train compartment a day. Clearly she had been wrong.   
  
She'd been on the train for a good fifteen minutes of the boarding time already, so when they had kindly told her to leave after she'd returned from Head Girl briefing from McGonagall with Harry, the train had started moving, and all of the seats had been taken up. Just her luck. And damn those boys to hell.  
  
If she couldn't find a free compartment, she told herself, she'd just have to go back and tell them, insisting she sit with them. Yes, that should work well.  
  
But that wasn't going to be the case, Hermione noticed as she took a look in the last compartment to her right.  
  
There was only one person sitting inside, seemingly pensive as he stared out the window. He was male as far as she could see from out here, and had black hair. Sighing, she slid the door open.   
  
"Sorry," she mumbled, her eyes downcast somewhat. "But would you mind if I sat here? Everywhere else is taken up or... busy," she added bitterly.  
  
Finally he slowly turned his head to face her. Theodore Nott. Grand, her head told her, but she decided to swallow down her prejudices and just live with it. After all, she'd never actually seen him interact with Malfoy's gang all too much. Maybe he wasn't the typical Slytherin.   
  
Blinking, she took a look at him. She'd never really noticed him before. He was quiet, lanky, Slytherin and seemed to fade into the shadows. It was no wonder she hadn't. And speaking of shadows, the ones on his face were mesmerizing. A stark contrast from his pale skin. It was the cheekbones… his facial bone structure in general... that were making those amazing shadows appear. And he was looking at her with near-black eyes that either said get-out-or-I'll-kill-you or I'm-mentally-undressing-you-right-now. Neither option Hermione decided she was all too wild about. Of course, there was always the option of I'm-staring-like-that-just-to-give-you-t

he-creeps, and Hermione settled on that one as the lesser of three evils. Seemed more like him, not that she knew anything about him. Then there was his hair. It seemed slightly long – perhaps a little longer than Harry's, and not quite as messy, but just as dark and straight. It seemed to fall a bit more to one side than the other, and Hermione had to admit to herself that a small part of her wanted to run her hands through it.  
  
"Sure, if you can stop staring."  
  
Hermione blushed, her lips tightening. "You were, too," she mumbled under her breath, feeling about five years old as she moved inside the compartment and shut the door, sitting down across from him.  
  
"Yes, but it's in my nature. I'm a people-watcher. And besides. I didn't come into your compartment, did I?"  
  
He had a point. Hermione made a face. "No. But you said it was all right."  
  
He nodded. "I did." Then, he added, "That's why I'm not complaining about you sitting across from me."  
  
They fell silent for a couple of moments during which Hermione reprimanded herself for having been so rude, and Theo stared out the window.   
  
Finally after a while she couldn't take it anymore. This is why you have friends and don't bother otherwise anymore, Hermione, her head told herself. After opening and closing her mouth a couple of times, she finally managed to get out, "Why do you stare?"  
  
It had to have been the worst question ever come up with, but she'd asked and now there was no repairing anything anymore. She didn't even know why she'd asked such an odd thing.  
  
He slowly turned his head to face her again, his eyes seeming to bore into her, making her feel a little intimidated. "Why do I stare? At people? At you? Out the window? ...At thestrals?"  
  
Hermione meekly nodded, surprised at his comment about the thestrals. She knew he could see them just like Luna and Harry, but didn't know why.   
  
"Because I want to see the magic," came his plain and simple answer, leaving Hermione stunned.   
  
She couldn't remember the last time she'd met such an interesting, complex individual. One could almost have said she was enjoying herself in the company of a Slytherin.  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
Theo sighed, only looking away from her eyes for a moment. "There's magic in everything. In everybody. I think that if I'll look hard enough, I can see it."  
  
"Well that's silly," came Hermione’s fast, judging answer. Theo's jaw tightened. "You can't see magic in other witches or wizards or, oh, that tree, for example!"  
  
He didn't stop staring at her. "Yes I can," He simply responded again, leaving her speechless. Before she could attempt a full sentence of "Wha... how...?" he had seen the confusion in her eyes and continued. "I can see the magic. So can you. but most people don't try hard enough. There's magic in all of us. Even Muggles."  
  
"Oh, but most of your friends would argue that I don't have any magic because I'm Muggle-born.” A small part of her was almost afraid he would agree with them. She wanted that... magic... in an odd sort of way.  
  
But he shook his head. "They're not my friends. I don't consider anyone my friend. Not close-minded people, anyway. And that's actually one of the main reasons I don't agree with them. What they say about you is wrong. The first time I saw you I noticed you had more magic in you than most of them put together."  
  
Well now she felt bad. Not because of his compliment – if one could call it that – but because she'd clearly already demonstrated herself as being one of those close-minded people.  
  
Before she knew it, his eyes were back on the window. "I still haven't figured out how to see the magic in a tree, though. Or a leaf. Or a cloud. Or—"  
  
"How can you tell?" She cut him off, wanting to know suddenly.  
  
He stared at her again. Or, uh, just his odd way of looking at people that made Hermione feel self-conscious. It was creepy in a way, not that she would dare tell him that.   
  
"You just look at their eyes," he replied, suddenly getting up and sitting next to her. "See?" he said, sitting so close Hermione felt her heartbeat speed up. Their knees were touching and Hermione gulped, shivering slightly, but she couldn't look away from him. "I can see it. All of it. Can't you?"  
  
She shook her head, not afraid to lie, but afraid to lose eye contact. She was sure something terrible might happen if she did.   
  
"There's something terribly deep and intense about eyes. More so than any other feature." For the first time he looked away from her eyes and onto something else on her face. He let them travel all of a sudden, reaching up his hand as well, and Hermione felt almost paralyzed as she watched him.   
  
"Not the forehead, or the temples, or your cheekbones, or your jawline," he let his fingers – long and gentle, for some reason – travel over her features as he named them and Hermione was terrified and frozen in place at the same time. "Not your nose, or your brow, even if it is terribly expressive... and yes, not even the lips." She watched as his eyes seemed to be in a fascinated stupor as he let them travel over her face and onto her lips especially before meeting her eyes again, enthrallment written in his own, as his fingers still lingered on her lips.   
  
He really was terribly attractive and terrifying at once, Hermione thought to herself as he moved his face a little closer. "The amount of magic in you really is astounding, Hermione," he whispered before leaning in and kissing her.   
  
She was shocked, yes, but not stupid, and within just a couple of seconds she was kissing him back – a Slytherin! – and actually enjoying it. It made her feel a little better that his eyes were closed and he wasn’t continuing to stare at her like that while he kissed her, but something told her that the way he’d been staring at her had other reasons behind it.   
  
Maybe she should thank Harry and Ron later on for letting her go off by herself and kiss a Slytherin. She might get a kick out of it, she told herself, mentally grinning as Theo's hands cupped her face.  
  
She didn't know what this meant, Theo kissing her, for herself, for her friends, or for him. But she felt somehow content right now. She hadn't had a boyfriend yet, if one didn't count Victor, which had always made her feel a little left out and jealous of girls like Lavender.

Yes. She was happy right now. And it wouldn't even matter to her if she found out that Theo had actually been talking about that spark, that twinkle in her eyes when he'd been referring to the magic, ultimately leaving the late Dumbledore with the most magic of all. She just didn't care.


End file.
